Toyota's growing dominance in the automotive sector is not by luck or chance. Much has been written about the company's operations and the Toyota Production System. What has been missing is a book that describes what Toyota's management philosophy and innovation is at the heart of that.

Matt's assignment from Toyota University was :

We need to translate the Toyota Production System for the knowledge worker. We really want to figure out how to bring the levels of employee productivity, engagement, continuous improvement and constant creativity found in our Toyota factories and warehouses to the corporate environment.

We talk about what innovation is, what qualities do organizations need to foster innovation, and how tension between measurements can create more innovative solutions.

Related Articles

I started with a list of 22 books that I thought deserved year-end honors. The narrowing of the list was the hard part. I quickly marked the ones I knew should be on my list and looked to see if they had something in common.

Matthew May is known for his thoughts on innovation and design strategy. His books The Elegant Solution and In Pursuit of Elegance focused on those topics, and were written in a more straightforward business style. Now, he's taken another turn: the business parable.

The Elegant Solution: Toyota's Formula for Mastering Innovation by Matthew May,
Free Press, 256 Pages, $26. 00, Hardcover, October 2006, ISBN 0743290178
One million. That is the number of ideas that Toyota implements every year.